Prompt Library

Charades Prompts for Every Room (Kids to Hard Mode)

30 copy-paste prompts

30 copy-paste charades prompts sorted by difficulty, each with an acting hint so the round actually moves. Easy words for family night, movie titles everyone knows, and hard-mode phrases for groups who think they are too good for this game.

In short: This page contains 30 copy-paste ready prompts, organized into 5 categories with a description and pro tip for each. The first 15 prompts are free instantly — no signup needed. Hand-curated and tested by the AI Academy team.

By Louis Corneloup · Founder, Techpresso

Last updated May 15, 2026·Hand-curated & tested by the AI Academy team

Easy (Kids & Family)

6 prompts

Brushing Teeth

1/30

brushing your teeth

Easy. A daily routine every kid recognizes in two seconds — perfect for the youngest player's first turn so they get an early win.

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Pro tip: Exaggerate the foam — puff your cheeks and pretend to spit. Kids guess faster from the spit than the brushing.

Elephant

2/30

elephant

Easy. One arm becomes a trunk and the whole room gets it. Animals with a single iconic feature are the best training wheels for new players.

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Pro tip: Add the ears with your free hand and do a slow heavy walk — the walk sells it more than the trunk.

Birthday Party

3/30

blowing out birthday candles

Easy. Combines a gesture (blowing) with a shape (the cake) — a gentle introduction to two-part mimes for kids ready to level up.

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Pro tip: Hold up fingers for the candle count first, then blow them down one by one.

Superhero

4/30

superhero flying

Easy. One fist forward, cape flapping in imaginary wind. Kids love performing it, and the guess usually arrives before the pose finishes.

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Pro tip: Mime tying the cape first — the costume beat makes it "superhero" instead of just "airplane."

Making Pizza

5/30

making a pizza

Easy-medium. Tossing dough overhead is a big readable action, and sprinkling toppings gives slower guessers a second clue.

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Pro tip: The dough toss is the money move — do it three times, bigger each time.

Penguin

6/30

penguin

Easy. The waddle is irresistible to perform and impossible to misread. A guaranteed laugh that doubles as an energy reset between harder rounds.

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Pro tip: Keep your arms pinned straight at your sides — the stiff arms matter more than the walk.

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Movies & TV

6 prompts

Titanic

7/30

Titanic

Medium. The bow pose is one of the most famous images in film — but watch your team guess "flying" for a solid thirty seconds first.

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Pro tip: Mime the sinking after the bow pose: tilt slowly sideways and slide under. The combo locks it in.

Jaws

8/30

Jaws

Medium. A fin hand on your head plus a slow menacing approach. The suspense is the clue — milk it.

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Pro tip: Hum nothing (no sounds allowed) but mime the two-note theme on an invisible cello; movie fans will scream it.

Harry Potter

9/30

Harry Potter

Medium. Glasses circle, lightning-bolt forehead trace, wand flick — three fast gestures that work as a combo even for players who have never read a page.

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Pro tip: Do the gestures in that exact order; the forehead zigzag is the one that triggers the guess.

Spider-Man

10/30

Spider-Man

Medium. The web-shooting wrist flick is universally known. The fun is everyone in the room involuntarily doing it back at you.

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Pro tip: Crawl one hand up an invisible wall first, then shoot the web — wall first prevents "cowboy" guesses.

Frozen

11/30

Frozen

Medium. Mime shivering, then the iconic "let it go" arm sweep. Households with kids will get it before your arm finishes moving.

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Pro tip: Build an invisible snowman halfway through if the room stalls — it is the second-most famous clue in the movie.

Stranger Things

12/30

Stranger Things

Hard-ish for non-watchers, instant for fans. Mime the wall of Christmas lights and pointing at letters — a great test of how much TV your group shares.

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Pro tip: Hold up fingers for four words first, then mime riding a bike — the bike plus the lights narrows it fast.

Hard Mode

6 prompts

Procrastination

13/30

procrastination

Hard. An abstract concept with no object to hold. The winning performances mime starting tasks and abandoning them — it takes real acting, not just gesturing.

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Pro tip: Mime opening a book, checking your phone, opening the book, checking your phone. The loop IS the word.

Deja Vu

14/30

deja vu

Hard. You have to perform the same short scene twice, identically, with a confused look the second time. Brilliant when it lands, chaos when it does not.

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Pro tip: Keep the repeated scene tiny — three moves max — so the repetition is unmissable.

Photosynthesis

15/30

photosynthesis

Hard. A science word that forces creative decomposition: sun, plant, growing. Watching someone mime "being a leaf" is worth the whole game night.

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Pro tip: Break it into syllables only as a last resort — act the concept first: point at the sun, then grow from a seed.

Inflation

16/30

inflation

Hard. Double meaning is the trap: half the room sees "balloon," and getting from balloon to economics requires genuinely clever miming.

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Pro tip: Blow up the balloon, then mime paying for groceries with increasing horror. The pivot is the clue.

Wifi Going Down

17/30

the wifi going out during a video call

Hard. A full modern scene — talking, freezing mid-gesture, frantic router-checking. Requires committing to the freeze, which is funnier the longer you hold it.

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Pro tip: The freeze is everything: stop mid-word with your mouth open and hold for five full seconds.

Monday Morning

18/30

Monday morning

Hard. Not an object, not an action — a vibe. Players have to chain alarm-slapping, zombie-shuffling, and coffee-clutching until the room feels it.

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Pro tip: Mime hitting snooze three separate times. Repetition reads as "morning"; the despair reads as "Monday."

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Funny Adult-Party (Clean)

6 prompts

Parallel Parking

19/30

failing to parallel park

Medium, very funny. The over-the-shoulder check and the endless wheel-cranking are universal adult trauma. The word "failing" is what makes the room laugh.

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Pro tip: Get out, look at the gap, get back in, and try again. The walk-around is the punchline.

Forgotten Name

20/30

forgetting someone's name while introducing them

Medium-hard. Pure social-horror comedy — the gesture toward the invisible person, the dying smile, the panic. Everyone has lived it, so everyone can guess it.

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Pro tip: The fading handshake gesture plus a long pained pause does more than any elaborate mime.

Self-Checkout Rage

21/30

arguing with a self-checkout machine

Medium. Scanning the same item six times with escalating fury is instantly recognizable and devolves into beautiful physical comedy.

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Pro tip: Mime the "unexpected item in bagging area" moment: look around for staff, then scan again, angrier.

Group Photo

22/30

taking a group photo where someone always blinks

Hard-ish. You play both photographer and disappointed reviewer — directing invisible people, checking the screen, sighing, repositioning. A one-person sketch.

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Pro tip: The repeated "everyone back in position" wave is the readable part; do it at least three times.

Sock Static

23/30

pulling a sock out of the laundry and losing the other one

Medium. The dawning search — couch cushions, under the dryer, behind the door — turns a household nothing into a detective story. Cleanest comedy in the list.

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Pro tip: Hold up the single sock and stare at it in betrayal before you start searching. The stare gets the laugh.

Diet Resolution

24/30

starting a diet and quitting it the same day

Medium-hard. A two-act arc: virtuous salad-eating, then the slow guilty pivot to invisible cake. Great for hams who want a full performance.

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Pro tip: Check an imaginary watch between the salad and the cake — the "same day" detail is what people guess last.

Actions & Animals

6 prompts

Sloth

25/30

sloth

Easy-medium and a crowd favorite — the entire performance happens at quarter speed, which is much harder to sustain than it sounds.

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Pro tip: Move slower than feels reasonable, then slow down again. The guess comes when you take ten seconds to raise one arm.

Crab Walk

26/30

crab

Easy. Pincer hands and a sideways scuttle. The commitment to the scuttle is what separates a good round from a great one.

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Pro tip: Snap the pincers at a guesser who gets close — interaction speeds up the right answer.

Milking a Cow

27/30

milking a cow

Medium. An old-school classic — the alternating hand squeeze plus the stool sit. Younger players may have genuinely never seen it, which is its own comedy.

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Pro tip: Sit on the invisible stool first. Without the stool it reads as something much harder to explain.

Kangaroo

28/30

kangaroo with a baby in its pouch

Medium. The hop is easy; the pouch detail is the fun part — checking on the invisible joey mid-bounce upgrades a basic animal into a scene.

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Pro tip: Hop first, get "kangaroo," then point at your stomach and cradle — the baby is a separate clue.

Tightrope Walker

29/30

walking a tightrope

Medium. Arms out, one foot exactly in front of the other, the occasional terrifying wobble. The wobble is the clue and the entertainment.

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Pro tip: Look down once with theatrical horror — the look down says "height," and height says tightrope.

Bee Attack

30/30

being chased by a bee

Medium and pure chaos. Flailing, swatting, running in a small circle — it reads instantly and leaves the actor winded. Perfect final round.

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Pro tip: Track the invisible bee with your eyes the whole time. Eye-tracking is what turns flailing into a bee.

Frequently Asked Questions

One player acts out a word or phrase using only gestures — no speaking, no mouthing words, no pointing at objects in the room. Standard signals: fingers held up for the number of words, fingers on your forearm for syllables, a "come on" wave for close guesses. Most groups play 60-90 second rounds in two teams.

Animals with one iconic feature (elephant, penguin, crab) and daily routines (brushing teeth, blowing out candles). Avoid abstract words, movie titles older than the kids, and anything needing two-part mimes until they have a few wins. The Easy category here is built for ages 5 and up.

No physical object to mime. Concrete nouns are easy; abstractions (procrastination, deja vu), vibes (Monday morning), and words with misleading double meanings (inflation) are hard because the actor must build a scene rather than point at an imaginary thing.

Split into two teams and set a strict timer — 60 seconds keeps a group of 10+ moving. Write prompts on slips in a bowl, mixing difficulties so weaker actors are not stuck with "photosynthesis." With 15+ people, run two simultaneous bowls and merge scores at the end.

Yes, and it is the fastest way to get a custom list. Tell ChatGPT or Claude the ages, the occasion, and a difficulty mix — for example "20 charades prompts for a clean office party, half easy, half hard, with an acting hint for each" — and cut anything too obscure for your room.

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